|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 53
"The bed," I began . . .
"I know that," rapped Smith. "I shouldn't have been sleeping in it,
had it been within reach of the window; but, knowing that the doctor
avoids noisy methods, I had thought myself fairly safe so long as I
made it impossible for any one actually to enter the room . . ."
"I have always insisted, Smith," I cried, "that there was danger! What
of poisoned darts? What of the damnable reptiles and insects which
form part of the armory of Fu-Manchu?"
"Familiarity breeds contempt, I suppose," he replied. "But as it
happened none of those agents was employed. The very menace that I
sought to avoid reached me somehow. It would almost seem that Dr.
Fu-Manchu deliberately accepted the challenge of those screwed-up
windows! Hang it all, Petrie! one cannot sleep in a room hermetically
sealed, in weather like this! It's positively Burmese; and although I
can stand tropical heat, curiously enough the heat of London gets me
down almost immediately."
"The humidity; that's easily understood. But you'll have to put up
with it in the future. After nightfall our windows must be closed
entirely, Smith."
Nayland Smith knocked out his pipe upon the side of the fireplace. The
bowl sizzled furiously, but without delay he stuffed broad-cut mixture
into the hot pipe, dropping a liberal quantity upon the carpet during
the process. He raised his eyes to me, and his face was very grim.
"Petrie," he said, striking a match on the heel of his slipper, "the
resources of Dr. Fu-Manchu are by no means exhausted. Before we quit
this room it is up to us to come to a decision upon a certain point."
He got his pipe well alight. "What kind of thing, what unnatural,
distorted creature, laid hands upon my throat to-night? I owe my life,
primarily, to you, old man, but, secondarily, to the fact that I was
awakened, just before the attack--by the creature's coughing--by its
vile, high-pitched coughing . . ."
I glanced around at the books upon my shelves. Often enough, following
some outrage by the brilliant Chinese doctor whose genius was directed
to the discovery of new and unique death agents, we had obtained a
clue in those works of a scientific nature which bulk largely in the
library of a medical man. There are creatures, there are drugs, which,
ordinarily innocuous, may be so employed as to become inimical to
human life; and in the distorting of nature, in the disturbing of
balances and the diverting of beneficent forces into strange and
dangerous channels, Dr. Fu-Manchu excelled. I had known him to
enlarge, by artificial culture, a minute species of fungus so as to
render it a powerful agent capable of attacking man; his knowledge of
venomous insects has probably never been paralleled in the history of
the world; whilst, in the sphere of pure toxicology, he had, and has,
no rival; the Borgias were children by comparison. But, look where I
would, think how I might, no adequate explanation of this latest
outrage seemed possible along normal lines.
"There's the clue," said Nayland Smith, pointing to a little ash-tray
upon the table near by. "Follow it if you can."
But I could not.
"As I have explained," continued my friend, "I was awakened by a sound
of coughing; then came a death grip on my throat, and instinctively my
hands shot out in search of my attacker. I could not reach him; my
hands came in contact with nothing palpable. Therefore I clutched at
the fingers which were dug into my windpipe, and found them to be
small--as the marks show--and hairy. I managed to give that first cry
for help, then with all my strength I tried to unfasten the grip that
was throttling the life out of me. At last I contrived to move one of
the hands, and I called out again, though not so loudly. Then both the
hands were back again; I was weakening; but I clawed like a madman at
the thin, hairy arms of the strangling thing, and with a blood-red
mist dancing before my eyes, I seemed to be whirling madly round and
round until all became a blank. Evidently I used my nails pretty
freely--and there's the trophy."
For the twentieth time, I should think, I carried the ash-tray in my
hand and laid it immediately under the table-lamp in order to examine
its contents. In the little brass bowl lay a blood-stained fragment of
grayish hair attached to a tatter of skin. This fragment of epidermis
had an odd bluish tinge, and the attached hair was much darker at the
roots than elsewhere. Saving its singular color, it might have been
torn from the forearm of a very hirsute human; but although my
thoughts wandered unfettered, north, south, east and west; although,
knowing the resources of Fu-Manchu, I considered all the recognized
Mongolian types, and, in quest of hirsute mankind, even roamed far
north among the blubbering Esquimo; although I glanced at Australasia,
at Central Africa, and passed in mental review the dark places of the
Congo, nowhere in the known world, nowhere in the history of the human
species, could I come upon a type of man answering to the description
suggested by our strange clue.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|